HRCP condemns killing of university teacher in Quetta

Lahore, April 28, 2010: HRCP condemns the target killing of Nazima Talib, a university teacher in Quetta, and calls upon the government to provide adequate security to vulnerable academic staff across Balochistan and bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice. Most of the victims are so-called settlers in the province who have been providing valuable services to people of Balochistan for the last several decades. Unfortunately, some Baloch militant organizations often claim responsibility for such murders and try to justify their acts as revenge for the excesses committed by the law-enforcing agencies against the Baloch political activists. HRCP is of the view that the excesses committed by the security agencies should not be visited on innocent non-Baloch people who served the Baloch society without any discrimination of race or language. The killing of innocent people on ethnic basis serves no purpose for otherwise a legitimate struggle for political rights of the Baloch population. It is unfortunate that most of senior Baloch leaders have not condemned these ruthless killings strongly enough, some of them present conspiracy theories to divert the blame from the Baloch organisations which hardly makes any sense. As the target killings have led to migration of the settlers, mostly engaged in the services sector where the Baloch people do not have or have little indigenous expertise, out of Balochistan, the Baloch people have suffered owing to increasing shortage of necessary services. As a result, the education system in the province has been destroyed besides the unavailability of other essential services such as healthcare. The government, despite the heavy presence of paramilitary forces and all sorts of intelligence agencies in the province, has failed in checking the crime. So far, no criminal has been brought to justice in any incident of target killing which emboldens the perpetrators of the crime. The discontent among the Baloch youth could not be assuaged though several months passed since the government made commitments to take measures to win over the Baloch nationalists, especially the young Baloch, under the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan Package. The murder of the woman teacher at the Balochistan University should serve as a reminder to the powers that be that they need to act immediately and decisively to make things improve in the Balochistan province.